If an elephant is a victim of a crime in Canada, who is in charge of resolving it?

Pachyderm penal policy may sound like a novelty but it is actually part of an elephant-sized and oft-neglected issue that impacts Canadians – environmental crime, which includes Illegal fishing, prohibited emissions, illegal timber and mining activities, poaching and trafficking of protected or endangered species.

Around the world, this disrupts business competitiveness, destroys natural systems, steals tax revenues and threatens national security in all forms. It also undermines sustainable development, feeds social unrest and is often linked to smuggling, modern slavery, corruption and money laundering.

However, unlike many of our trading partners and competitors, such as all European Union members or China, Canada does not have a path toward a coherent national strategy or timeline to counter crimes that affect the environment. This puts us at a competitive disadvantage at a time when we need all our policy and economic levers in line and sequenced.

Five steps need to be taken: start treating environmental crime as serious crime, not something merely to be regulated; use the full force of the law – criminal, financial and environmental – to prosecute offenders; toughen domestic laws; ensure greater federal-provincial co-operation; and promote greater international action on the issue.

Greater co-operation needed

There is an old joke: When asked to write about an elephant, a Frenchman eloquently describes its amorous characteristics, a Brit speaks stately to the creature’s importance to imperial history, while a Canadian writes: “Elephant: a federal or provincial responsibility?”

Environmental crime is a policy orphan in Canada even though the World Bank says it is worth as much as $300 billion globally with $1-2 trillion in related costs to communities and ecosystem services worldwide. Federal and provincial environment ministers co-ordinate on biodiversity and pollution, but never on green crime despite its damage to ecosystems. Justice and public safety ministers meet frequently, but not on this issue, even with its economic and social costs.

Pan-Canadian strategies exist on everything from climate change to auto theft, but not for environmental crime. This benefits the bad guys, from poachers and smugglers to corporate offenders.

If you had your fishing licence checked or read about an illegal chemical release resulting in fines, you know there are hundreds of hard-working enforcement officers from dozens of federal, provincial and territorial agencies. But when was the last time you heard a justice minister, an environment minister or a finance minister at any level speak about environmental crime?

A mishmash of approaches

There are abundant symptoms of neglect. Sentences for violators have no common thread or logic.

The maximum sentence for illegally hunting ducks in a national wildlife area is five years. The same act in a federal bird sanctuary tops out at three years. Poach a shipload of valuable lobster and you risk a fine the first time, jail if you repeat, but even in the worst possible cases only to a maximum of two years.

In a quirk of Canadian federalism, responsibility for terrestrial wildlife falls under the provinces while criminal law is a federal jurisdiction. Poach every bear, moose or deer and one may get a provincial fine but can never face criminal charges or penitentiary time.

The flagship Canadian Environmental Protection Act has a maximum sentence of three years – not enough to qualify as “serious crime (p.5)” under United Nations rules, which defines that term as four years.

Some laws, such as the Impact Assessment Act or the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, don’t give judges the option for incarceration at all. Even for laws that do have jail time provisions, sentences rarely, if ever, result inimprisonment regardless of the amount of harm caused – with prosecutors almost always seeking fines instead. Meanwhile, Canadian enforcement officers often see current fine levels as nothing more than a violator’s cost of doing business, not a deterrent.

Equally problematic: green crime profits are almost never investigated for criminal conspiracy, tax evasion or money laundering. Changes enacted in 2024 allow FINTRAC to share financial crime intelligence with the federal (though not provincial) environment and fisheries ministers, which appears to be a step in the right direction. However, environmental officers cannot investigate proceeds of crime because that job lies with the police, who have different policy and operational priorities.

Where does Canada stand on international environmental crime?

Canada’s industrial ambitions require robust environmental governance

Police forces across Canada have computer networks that talk to one another, but environmental law enforcement agencies don’t have systems to share information on cross-jurisdictional violators. Recent work to implement a system to identify high-risk wildlife and invasive species imports was quietly canned by the Canada Border Services Agency even though it was a 2025 Liberal electoral promise (p.28) that would help multiple enforcement agencies.

Criminals don’t fear government silos. They thrive on them.

Five steps Canada should take

First, there must be a paradigm shift. Governments need to rethink the threat. Environmental crime needs to be dealt with as a crime problem, not a regulatory one.

Second, break the ivory towers. Federal and provincial ministers responsible for justice, public safety, environment, foreign affairs and natural resources need to develop joint strategies. If a sustainable environment, secure trade and a strong economy are policy objectives, green crime is a direct threat to success. We need prevention and enforcement policies that put strategic collaboration, not jurisdictional stovepipes, first.

Third, we need all-of-government approaches by building cross-government strategies, systems and accountabilities. Environmental crime should be treated as organized crime where appropriate and the full force of the law – criminal, financial and environmental – must be used to disrupt and prosecute offenders.

Fourth, enact law reform that would enable officers and prosecutors to go after the money and the organized criminal conspiracies, not just regulatory violations. The federal Justice Department should work with provinces to criminalize egregious environmental offences under their responsibility. There is no logical reason why sentences for national wildlife area violations meet the UN definition of “serious crime” while massive pollution, provincially regulated wild species and fisheries infractions do not.

Fifth, build international bridges. Environmental crime in other countries impacts markets here and climate warming everywhere. Illegally obtained fish, wood products, critical minerals and wildlife are trafficked here, unfairly competing with Canadian producers.

The federal government can begin at a UN conference in October by supporting a proposed global agreement that will enable transnational investigations and prosecutions of environmental crime. This initiative is championed by dozens of countries, but Canada has not revealed its position.

Development assistance funds can guide green enforcement capacity-building, including against the corruption and money laundering that threaten Canada’s global biodiversity and climate change investments. Ottawa can introduce import traceability requirements like other countries are doing to stop illegally obtained natural resources from entering our markets.

In a world of changing geopolitics and nature loss, where access to natural resources is becoming a flashpoint, the lack of a co-ordinated Canadian approach to counter criminals who steal or destroy nature and our resources – then launder their gains with impunity – is the elephant in the room that Canada’s governments need to address.